


Buried Alive

by hobbit_hedgehog



Series: Creature Feature in Night Vale [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Buried Alive, Horror, M/M, Poetry mentions, Spooky, creature feature, edgar allan poe - Freeform, the raven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 13:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2430950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbit_hedgehog/pseuds/hobbit_hedgehog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos and Cecil read Edgar Allan Poe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buried Alive

**Author's Note:**

> My second story for the Creature Feature in Night Vale challenge! I had a lot of fun with this one, mostly because I didn't have to worry about doing schoolwork in order to get this one done. This one is based off of the second song on Creature Feature's first album "The Greatest Show Unearthed" which is called "Buried Alive".

“Cecil, can I ask you a favor?” Carlos asked one October night.

“Anything Carlos. Just ask,” Cecil replied, carding his fingers through Carlos’s hair.

The couple was having a lazy night in. Cecil’s show had been canceled due to Friday being switched with Tuesday and Carlos had called it an early night at the lab. Carlos was stretched out on the couch, his head resting in Cecil’s lap. Cecil was sitting upright, his dream journal balanced on the arm of the couch.

“Well, wait right here,” Carlos said, rising from his spot on the couch.

Cecil made a small noise of protest, earning a smile and a kiss on the forehead from Carlos. Carlos disappeared into the bedroom, reappearing a few minutes later with something hidden behind his back.

“Cecil, can you read from this for me?” Carlos asked, holding out an ancient and battered copy of _The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe_.

“Carlos! You know how I and the City Council feel about books in the house,” Cecil groaned, giving Carlos a look.

“I know, but I figured that it’s October and that your voice is really suitable for reading Edgar Allan Poe.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea- You think I have a good voice?”

“Of course I do Cecil,” Carlos said. “That low, sonorous voice of yours is perfect for reading Edgar Allan Poe. You should give it a shot.”

Cecil stared at the book for a moment, contemplating Carlos’s request. Carlos held the book out to Cecil, shaking it slightly in an attempt to entice Cecil. Cecil smiled, holding his hand out for the old book. Carlos’s grin widened before he passed the book to Cecil. Cecil took the book and Carlos settled back down onto couch, his feet resting on Cecil’s lap.

“Where did you get this from?” Cecil asked as he flipped through the book.

“I put in a request from Night Vale’s bravest bookworm,” Carlos said, settling on the couch a bit.

“I see. Any requests?” Cecil asked.

“Can you read _The Premature Burial_?” Carlos asked.

Cecil smiled and flipped to the correct page before he began to read, “There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction….”

~~

Several short stories and poems later, Carlos was hooked on the idea of Cecil reading Poe. He had gone into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of cheap, store bought wine that had Ravenswood and two wine glasses. “You know, for the aesthetic,” Carlos had said when Cecil gave him an amused look. The two sat together on the couch as Cecil flipped between the poems and the short stories, the bottle draining as the evening went on.

“Any last requests before we end the night?” Cecil asked as he poured the last of the wine between the two glasses.

“ _The Raven_ ,” Carlos replied, taking his glass and sipping from it.

Cecil thumbed through the book, stopping on the first page of the “Miscellaneous Poems” section. He took a sip of his wine, cleared his throat and began to read, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door—“‘Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—Only this and nothing more.”.”

“Keep going, you’re doing great,” Carlos said, stifling a yawn.

“Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, and each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow from my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—Nameless here for evermore.”

Try as he might to avoid the inevitable, Carlos felt himself drift off into dreamland. He struggled to stay awake for a while longer, but Cecil’s hypnotic tone quickly put him to sleep, his head lolling back onto the armrest as his breathing slowed.

~~

_Carlos cracked his eyes open only to find darkness. With jolt, Carlos made to sit up, cracking his head against the apparent low ceiling. He swore loudly and cradled his head in his hands. Carlos took a few deep, calming breaths and slowly dropped his hands from his face. He reached one hand in front of him and another to his side. Both hands came in contact with hard wood._

_‘This is not good,’ Carlos thought to himself as he began to pound his hand against the wood above him._

_“HEY! IS THERE ANYONE THERE?!” Carlos shouted. “PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF SCIENCE THERE HAS BEEN SOME SORT OF MISTAKE! LET ME OUT!”_

_Carlos continued to pound against the surface for a few minutes before the rational side of his brain kicked back in._

_‘Calm down Carlos, get a grip of yourself,’ Carlos thought as he tried to calm his now shot nerves. ‘If you are in a sealed container and you’re carrying on this way, you’re going to run out of breathable oxygen sooner than later. You NEED to calm down.’_

_Carlos took a few more moments to compose himself. He needed to review what he knew to be scientifically factual: He was alive. He was trapped in a box of some sort. A box definitely made of wood. With limited oxygen. A box that was shaped like…. What exactly? Carlos felt around with his hands and feet for a moment before he came to the conclusion that this box was not quite rectangular, but it was most definitely not a cube._

_‘Oblong,’ a voice whispered in the back of Carlos’s mind. ‘This is an oblong box. Just like the Edgar Allan Poe story.’_

_Carlos let out a choked gasp of recognition. He was more than likely lying inside of a coffin. He took a few calming breaths, trying to stop himself from shaking too much. Carlos wrapped his arms around himself, trying to figure out how he had managed to get into this situation. He and Cecil had been having a nice, quiet evening at home, so how had this happened? Had the Sheriff’s Secret Police found out about the book and decided that Carlos needed to vanish for good this time? And speaking of Cecil, where was he? Had they grabbed him and shoved him in a coff- oblong box too? Carlos couldn’t bring himself to admit that he was trapped in a coffin._

_“Oh agony,” a voice rang out from the darkness, causing Carlos to jump._

_“Who’s there?” Carlos called. “Whoever you are, please help!”_

_The owner of the disembodied voice paid no attention to Carlos as it intoned, “Then the blackness loomed close up against my skin. Snuffing out even the evil whiteness of those damning lips, dragging all sensibility into retreat, in a mad rushing descensus of the soul into Hades...”_

_Something about the voice seemed eerily familiar, but Carlos could not place it. Carlos thought about calling out to the darkness again when the voice returned once more._

_“I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observation of the men—but the noise steadily increased. Oh god! what could I do? I foamed—I raved—I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder—louder—louder!” the voice intoned, the intensity growing with each word, yet the volume remained the same._

_Carlos then realized the source of the voice and whispered, “Cecil? Cecil, is that you? Are you there?”_

_But Cecil did not appear from the darkness, nor did he stop in his recitation, “And still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God!—no, no! They heard!—they suspected!—they knew!—they were making a mockery of my horror!—this I thought, and this I think. But any thing was better than this agony! Any thing was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt I must scream or die!—and now—again!—hark! louder! louder! louder!—”_

_“Cecil, please!” Carlos shouted. “Please stop, just help me!”_

_“‘Villains!’ I shrieked, ‘dissemble no more!’” Cecil shouted, his voice ripping through the darkness into Carlos’s heart, chilling him as he lay listening to his boyfriend’s mad rant. “‘I admit the deed?—tear up the planks!—here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart!’”_

_Carlos clapped his hands over his ears, shaking his head as Cecil’s voice slowly died down. Silence returned to the oblong box, but Carlos’s ears were ringing with the screeching of his boyfriend. His breath came in short pants, panic racking his body as he lay in total darkness. Carlos was scared, unsure if Cecil had left him once more or if he was still somewhere in the confined space with Carlos._

_“And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting on the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; and his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, and the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor,” Cecil’s voice came from the darkness, this time barely above a whisper._

_“Cecil….” Carlos began, reaching a trembling hand out towards the darkness._

_“And from my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted—nevermore!”_

“CARLOS,” came a shout from Carlos’s left.

Carlos jerked awake and gave a shout as he fell off of the couch and onto the floor of his apartment. He gave a groan of pain as he rolled onto his back and looked up into the worried face of Cecil. Disoriented, Carlos sat up and stared at Cecil, questioning his boyfriend’s existence only slightly.

“What happened?”

“You fell asleep and started twitching,” Cecil replied. “I was going to let you be when you started thrashing about and screaming. Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Carlos said, exhaling a shaky breath. “Bad dream, that’s all. But Cecil?”

“Yes Carlos,” Cecil asked, helping Carlos to his feet.

“Remind me to never let you read Edgar Allan Poe ever again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just imagine Cecil reading Edgar Allan Poe. I think about that possibility a lot.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Black Cat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2444810) by [psychosomatic86](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychosomatic86/pseuds/psychosomatic86)




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